So one of my players wants to pick up a second HH-50 Heavy Blaster Pistol. Each of these has Linked 1. He also wants to get the Paired Weapons attachment for them. Just so I have this right...

In combat, he decides to dual-wield. Because the guns are the same (and use the same skills and characteristics), he uses Agility and Ranged (Light), then upgrades his check by one. So let's say his Agility is 3 and his Ranged (Light) is 2. Edit: Now let's say he double-aims. Because he's at Short range, the roll looks something like this: (Edited the roll!) . That's before adding any Boosts or Setbacks, of course. So he rolls these dice.

Right?

He needs to cause the second weapon to hit, then to activate Linked on the first HH-50 and to activate Linked on the second HH-50.

Right?

Five advantages, and he can do 4 x (Damage + Uncancelled ).

Right?

So let's say the final tally of his roll is . That shot can net him 40 points of damage. (Of course, Soak is applied four times, as well.)

Right?

Just making sure.

Since you didn't specify at what range he is shooting, I'm going to assume its Medium which is an Average check. Using two-weapons in combat increases, not upgrades, the difficulty by one if the skill used is the same, by two if the skill used is different. That makes the base roll YYGPPP before any Boost or Setback. But as far as everything else goes, it seems to be correct.

Yes, although with 2 Yellow, 1 Green, the most you could get out of that roll if all the negative dice came up as blank is:

or

or

The results you came up with require a couple Boost dice, another Ability and all the Difficulty/Setback/Challenge dice to result in blanks. Not a very likely roll but it is possible.

Note that only one of the above results from the 2 Proficiency, 1 Ability roll with blank negative dice would actually give you enough advantage to activate the 2nd hit and Linked on both weapons but it would result in a total of 32 damage before soak, with each hit applying soak. So in this case, an Adversary with a soak of 5 would take 4 hits of 8 wounds, subtracting 5 with soak on every hit, resulting in 12 wounds. Definitely enough to take out 2 Stormtroopers and damage a third in a group of 3, take out a Rival in a single Combat check or severely wound a Nemesis.

The key factor in this being that the roll has to succeed, generate exactly 5 advantage or the triumph + advantage equivalent and all negative dice have to come up blank. It's a really lucky shot with 2 Proficiency, 1 Ability.

Also, what Oden said is true. When using the same skill while two weapon fighting, you increase difficulty by 1, so a short range shot would turn from 1 difficulty to 2, and so on.

Ah. Right. I forgot to mention the example was a Short range.

Also, you're right. To get the results I mentioned, he'd have to double-aim and get a pretty darn good roll.

Still, wow. Once he gets his Ranged (Light) up there a bit more, that will be a force to be reckoned with.

Still, wow. Once he gets his Ranged (Light) up there a bit more, that will be a force to be reckoned with.

...and that's when you start using the special rules for that blaster: 2 threat rolled means out of ammo, 3 threat means overheated, etc... Also, whatever players can do, so can Adversaries.

Dodge, cover, distance and the Adversary talent are your friend.

Ah. Right. I forgot to mention the example was a Short range.

Also, you're right. To get the results I mentioned, he'd have to double-aim and get a pretty darn good roll.

Still, wow. Once he gets his Ranged (Light) up there a bit more, that will be a force to be reckoned with.

Yeah, so imagine my four-armed Besalisk with an Agility of 4 and a Ranged Light skill of 5, plus two ranks of True Aim.

And if those barrels were Paired instead of Linked, it would only take one Advantage to trigger the second barrel.

Yeah, so imagine my four-armed Besalisk with an Agility of 4 and a Ranged Light skill of 5, plus two ranks of True Aim.

And if those barrels were Paired instead of Linked, it would only take one Advantage to trigger the second barrel.

The description for Paired Weapons doesn't look like it would allow for pairing two barrels of the same weapon, so I don't think I'd allow that.

So one of my players wants to pick up a second HH-50 Heavy Blaster Pistol. Each of these has Linked 1. He also wants to get the Paired Weapons attachment for them. Just so I have this right...

In combat, he decides to dual-wield. Because the guns are the same (and use the same skills and characteristics), he uses Agility and Ranged (Light), then upgrades his check by one. So let's say his Agility is 3 and his Ranged (Light) is 2. Edit: Now let's say he double-aims. Because he's at Short range, the roll looks something like this: (Edited the roll!) . That's before adding any Boosts or Setbacks, of course. So he rolls these dice.

Okay, so let’s look at the actual probability of this happening — at least one success, plus five advantage:

$ dicecalculator.rb -D:DDPPABB -T:SAAAAA

++++RESULTS for Dice Pool: DDPPABB++++
Total Chance of Success: 80.72%
Total Chance of Advantage: 74.62%
Total Chance of Threat: 10.97%
Total Chance of Failure Symbol: 7.31%
Total Chance of Reaching Target (SAAAAA): 3.73%
Total Triumph Chance: 15.97%
+++++++++++++++

$ ./dicecalculator.rb -D:DDPPPPABB -T:SAAAAA

++++RESULTS for Dice Pool: DDPPPPABB++++
Total Chance of Success: 94.63%
Total Chance of Advantage: 89.01%
Total Chance of Threat: 4.02%
Total Chance of Failure Symbol: 1.63%
Total Chance of Reaching Target (SAAAAA): 22.33%
Total Triumph Chance: 29.39%
+++++++++++++++

$ dicecalculator.rb -D:DDPPPPPABB -T:SAAAAA

++++RESULTS for Dice Pool: DDPPPPPABB++++
Total Chance of Success: 97.33%
Total Chance of Advantage: 92.99%
Total Chance of Threat: 2.39%
Total Chance of Failure Symbol: 0.73%
Total Chance of Reaching Target (SAAAAA): 34.85%
Total Triumph Chance: 35.28%
+++++++++++++++

If you add a Bantha’s Eye Laser Target Indicator to each weapon, that will give you an automatic Advantage for each, which effectively reduces the desired target by two Advantages:

$ dicecalculator.rb -D:DDPPPPPABB -T:SAAA

++++RESULTS for Dice Pool: DDPPPPPABB++++
Total Chance of Success: 97.33%
Total Chance of Advantage: 92.99%
Total Chance of Threat: 2.39%
Total Chance of Failure Symbol: 0.73%
Total Chance of Reaching Target (SAAA): 68.01%
Total Triumph Chance: 35.28%
+++++++++++++++

You could add more ranks of True Aim, you could find other attachments which provide additional Advantages or boost dice, but you’re still getting to the point where it is harder and harder to find ways to get that extra little that you need to make your desired outcome happen often enough.

And all 4 of thosr hits can only hit 1 target. Still cool, but a single Jury Rigged Autofire pistol is still better. ie let them do it.

Unless they are a Hunter with Intuitive Shot and either Sage/Seer/Hermit which therefore can add 4 force dice to the attack pool, then it really doesn't matter what they use the target will be dead.

Now if we want to go further, your Besalisk could always grab the guns blazing talent. Suffer six strain and bring the challenge pool back down to one difficulty die.

Now if we want to go further, your Besalisk could always grab the guns blazing talent. Suffer six strain and bring the challenge pool back down to one difficulty die.

That’s been on my radar for a while.

We’ll see if the game lasts long enough for me to get all the talents I would need to do this right. Meanwhile, I am plugging away at it as best I can.

No Problem with that. The two pistols are encumberance 3, so the player using this setup has the same encumberance as if he would use a heavy blaster rifle without the range of a HBR. Aditionally with 5 Advantages he could trigger autofire 2 times resulting in 3 hits which he could place at more targets than just one. Additionally the player using two pistols would need 2 actions to ready the pistols and not one for the rifle. And thats for a rifle that isn't jury rigged... If the player stays with a medium ranged weapon, there is the heavy blaster carbine which only has an encumberance of 4 which is two less than the two HH50.

The Setup is interesting when used by a gunslinger as a kinda heavy weapons package. But the Encumberance 6 from two pistols is a hefty drawback since there is no guarantee to roll the required advantages to trigger the full effect. Even if the character is a gunslinger with the guns blazing talent. The usefullness of this setup increases drastically with spitfire, but again - a autofire-pistol is a far more useful weapon and has an encumberance of only 2.

The HH50 is anything but a danger to balance. Even when used by a Besalisk-Gunslinger. An ordinary Gadgeteer, Outlaw-Tech or Gunner with a jury rigged autofire weapon is the way to go if you want to unleash hell. But a Besalisk Gunslinger sounds like a funny concept for a character.

If i had to go for a sure kill i would go for critical hits. My current player character is a gunslinger/assassin with a nearly completed gunslinger tree, agility 4, light ranged 5 and 4 ranks in lethal blows. With two paired disruptor pistols there is a chance of nearly 50% per crit to vaporize the target.

Yeah, so imagine my four-armed Besalisk with an Agility of 4 and a Ranged Light skill of 5, plus two ranks of True Aim.

And if those barrels were Paired instead of Linked, it would only take one Advantage to trigger the second barrel.

The description for Paired Weapons doesn't look like it would allow for pairing two barrels of the same weapon, so I don't think I'd allow that.

The linked can be solved through Jury Rigged (EotE CRB page 138), by decreasing the advantage cost for activating a quality (linked) by 1...

No Problem with that. The two pistols are encumberance 3, so the player using this setup has the same encumberance as if he would use a heavy blaster rifle without the range of a HBR. Aditionally with 5 Advantages he could trigger autofire 2 times resulting in 3 hits which he could place at more targets than just one. Additionally the player using two pistols would need 2 actions to ready the pistols and not one for the rifle. And thats for a rifle that isn't jury rigged... If the player stays with a medium ranged weapon, there is the heavy blaster carbine which only has an encumberance of 4 which is two less than the two HH50.

With two ranks of Burly from Heavy, those Enc 3 pistols become Enc 1. No longer a problem.

That HBR is likely to be banned in a lot of places, simply because it’s a blaster rifle. The HH50s are pistols, and therefore less likely to be banned. Moreover, something that takes out the HBR takes out your whole attack capability, whereas with the HH50s, you would lose one weapon, but presumably not the others.

Carbine-wise, I like the OK-98 over any other blaster carbine I’ve seen. It has a model-specific method of increasing the damage it does by two points, before you get into any of the other areas. With that mod alone, you’re already doing more damage than an HBR. With some work, you can get it up to 15 points of damage per shot.

The Setup is interesting when used by a gunslinger as a kinda heavy weapons package. But the Encumberance 6 from two pistols is a hefty drawback since there is no guarantee to roll the required advantages to trigger the full effect. Even if the character is a gunslinger with the guns blazing talent. The usefullness of this setup increases drastically with spitfire, but again - a autofire-pistol is a far more useful weapon and has an encumberance of only 2.

I’m definitely keeping these things in mind.

If our game becomes more ground combat than anything else, my next specialization that I pick up will most likely be Gunslinger.

If our game becomes more ship combat than anything else, I’ll continue to expand in Ace Gunner, and then look for other ways to enhance that.

But in the meanwhile, I’m exploring all sorts of options.

The HH50 is anything but a danger to balance. Even when used by a Besalisk-Gunslinger. An ordinary Gadgeteer, Outlaw-Tech or Gunner with a jury rigged autofire weapon is the way to go if you want to unleash hell. But a Besalisk Gunslinger sounds like a funny concept for a character.

I’m going this route more because it looks cool to me, and I like the flair.

I’m not looking to just do plain maximum damage. I prefer having maximum style, and I’ll sacrifice some maximum damage to get there.

If i had to go for a sure kill i would go for critical hits. My current player character is a gunslinger/assassin with a nearly completed gunslinger tree, agility 4, light ranged 5 and 4 ranks in lethal blows. With two paired disruptor pistols there is a chance of nearly 50% per crit to vaporize the target.

Yeah, I don’t know that I’d ever do disruptor pistols. I know where you’re coming from, but as crazy-ass as my Besalisk might appear to be, he’s actually not that interested in just vaporizing people. He’d rather surprise stun them out with SSB-1 Static Pistols, and when they wake up you get the opportunity to interrogate them, toss them out of the airlock, or whatever.

To each their own.

Yeah, so imagine my four-armed Besalisk with an Agility of 4 and a Ranged Light skill of 5, plus two ranks of True Aim.

And if those barrels were Paired instead of Linked, it would only take one Advantage to trigger the second barrel.

The description for Paired Weapons doesn't look like it would allow for pairing two barrels of the same weapon, so I don't think I'd allow that.

My Chiss gunslinger has two C-10 heavy blasters and the paired weapons mod does alow that. Also she has the two weapon talent in the gunslinger tree. She has all but confadence as I am filling out pilot tree.

Yeah, so imagine my four-armed Besalisk with an Agility of 4 and a Ranged Light skill of 5, plus two ranks of True Aim.

And if those barrels were Paired instead of Linked, it would only take one Advantage to trigger the second barrel.

The description for Paired Weapons doesn't look like it would allow for pairing two barrels of the same weapon, so I don't think I'd allow that.

My Chiss gunslinger has two C-10 heavy blasters and the paired weapons mod does alow that. Also she has the two weapon talent in the gunslinger tree. She has all but confadence as I am filling out pilot tree.

I'm not sure I followed that. The Dragoneye Reaper only has one barrel. The Paired Weapons attachment lets you fire the off-hand weapon for 1 Advantage, but it does nothing for the Linked quality a two-barrelled weapon might posess. Which the C-10 doesn't.

For balanced purposes... honestly its not a big deal. You can just put a "RAPID-RECHARGE XCITER" on any blaster ("This attachment can be applied to any blaster." And with jury rigged (broken) have a better pistol like a model 1 nova viper thats better than a dual wielded linked hh50. The same argument for people being worried and asking someone with a heavy blaster rifle to leave it at the door or wait outside would be true of someone carrying TWO DOUBLE BARRELED HEAVY PISTOLS. Quoted from the stay on target book: "BlasTech's HH-50 is a heavy, double-barreled, largeframe blaster pistol designed mainly for hunting large and dangerous animals. Nearly the size of a blaster carbine, and sharing a number of parts and systems with the Clone Wars-era DC-15 blaster carbine, the HH-50 is the largest, heaviest, highest-output blaster pistol currently produced."

So this way you only have less heavy duty pistol .. much more subtle.... less drawing maneuvers/talents needed.. not limited to linked 1 each. AND better attacks on your turn.