Do you think it is intended that you add your Brawn to the Repulsor fist's damage?

A repulsor grip provides one rank of the Defensive Stance talent and counts as a Brawl weapon with a damage of 8, a Critical Rating of 3, and the Concus- sive 1 and Slow-Firing 2 qualities. This weapon has the Slow-Firing 2 rule, meaning it can only be used once every third round. This means that while a character may still make Brawl attacks when this weapon is “recharging” he does so without any benefits from the weapon—he simply makes an unarmed melee attack.

It says damage of 8, not damage of 8+, but I don't know if there is another instance in the rulebooks that uses a "+" in a descriptive text, so in my opinion this could be read both ways.

Also, I know of only two melee weapons that do not add Brawn, and that would be a Beamdrill and the Electromag-Pulse Disruptor . With those two it makes sense not to add Brawn to damage, since the Beamdrill has Cumbersome 4 (meaning it takes all of your strength just to wield it, and everybody who has ever used a pneumatic drill will agree with me) and the Electromag-Pulse Disruptor use a Burst of electricity and has the Ion quality. Even Blast Knuckles - that literally explode outwards - add Brawn.

Conclusion:

On the one hand, the possibilty of a character with Brawn 5 using one of those and starting with 12 damage is scary, on the other hand there are (cheaper) ranged weapons that deal more damage and are not restricted with slow firing 2, and in addition, you know, aren't restricted to engaged.

Just looking for somebody elses opinion on the matter.

Ps: I know that Brawn 5 is not the limit, but is a more realistic example than adding stim application and the cybertech talent for a Brawn 8 or 9 character (which could actually happen in my group in the foreseeable future.)

Oh, and Lightsabers of course.

Nope, that's why they give a base damage and not a + X added to Stat Y.

AoR p. 180 Brawl Weapons

"When using a brawl weapon, users add their Brawn characteristic to the damage dealt, unless the weapon

Do they do that for another item in descriptive text? just curious

That's what's written for Brawl and Melee weapons in their respective entries in the gear section of the book.

I don't think any weapon in the game comes close to adding 8 to Brawn I think +6 is the most and that's an outlier. +3 is considered pretty powerful. Common sense alone dictates that it has to be the entire base damage.

No other Brawl weapon can only be used every third round, if you're hit by an ion blast the weapon as well as your entire arm is useless, it costs the aforementioned arm as well as 4750 Credits, which apart from the rarest weapons like a sith shield and lightsabers is also the most expensive Brawl weapon.

Sorry, at first I was sure that it is a fixed value, but after comparing it, it seems almost fair game.The Arg'garok is +5, is rarity 7 as well, only costs 1000c and can be used every round.

After consulting the core rulebook it seems unlikely that it is indeed +8, still think it wouldn't break the game.

Of course people don't know you have a repulsor fist until you shoot them in the face with it, as opposed to an axe which they know what those are, so it's much sneakier. I don't think it's fair to compare it as primary weapon either, it's really meant as an ugly surprise back up in my mind. Plus since first time anyone knows what it is would be when you blast them with it, unless you roll fairly crummy you'll have Concussive 1, which means that fella ain't shooting back.

Ion weapons are not all that common, and they have to know to shoot you/bomb you with one otherwise why would they bother? Even if you are hit with an Ion weapon you arm isn't useless, it's just disabled for the encounter or 'until repaired'. In all honestly as well how many times would you even use it if it didn't get ion-ed? A 6 round combat encounter would be pretty long, so 3 times at most?

Yeah, but he has another two turns to shoot back - IF we were to treat it like a regular weapon in a vacuum. Even in a 6 round combat you could only use it twice, which would point towards it needing to be one-shot-kill.

Also the surprise isn't a factor most of the time:

Also called a repulse-hand or an enforcer grip, this
durasteel weapon cybernetic is typically neither covered
in synthskin nor intended to appear natural.

Of course, an NPC or PC might have it covered in a glove or synthskin before using it on somebody who doesn't know him. In my head the glove/skin will be dramatically blown away after it's used to reveal the repulsor fist. It would be very entertaining to have a PC that hates finding new bandages to cover it up again.

You're right about Ion weapons tough. I have two ganks in my party, and the group is starting to get a reputation, enough that evilface might soon start equipping minions for cyborg hunting, which probably clouds my opinion on ion weapons.

He can't shoot back at least one round if you trigger Concussive, no Actions for him.

Concussive is easily the most powerful quality in the game. Having a giant handicap and cost to a weapon that has that quality is a good choice.

On top of this its a one handed brawl weapon so you are still taking swings with your free hand (probably with another brawl weapon on it) and can get the second hit. Plus on that down turn where the weapon is not available you are making attacks on a target that just has to eat it. This is all assuming dont have any xp or talents spent in brawl (I thought hope you do by now). If you do you're probably smacking down the wookie doctor fighting style to dump a ton of intelligence/medical bonus damage as part of the attack or knocking them down. Being able to skip someones turn and without needing to spend maneuvers to put away/draw weapons in the mean time is super handy and makes it a pretty powerful tool against any single target type enemies. Yeah its fairly vulnerable to hordes of minions but thats the big trade off. You can always use other weapons and not use it for those targets. Action economy is huge in an rpg and i feel like a lot of people underestimate that with regards to concussive.

Also ion is definitely a danger but that so hugely rare that its not a common thing. The people using it on you probably know you have it/use it and have to prep (i.e. recurring villains/bounty hunters) who should likely have some plan to counter how your party operates anyway.

And only 8 base damage? My Wookiee Marauder had a Soak of 7, and that was because I was intentionally staying away from all the talents to boost his Soak, WT, and ST, just so that he wouldn’t become too OP too quickly.

Not much of that damage would be getting through.

And only 8 base damage? My Wookiee Marauder had a Soak of 7, and that was because I was intentionally staying away from all the talents to boost his Soak, WT, and ST, just so that he wouldn’t become too OP too quickly.

Not much of that damage would be getting through.

a) Players and NPCs operate on different rules for building characters. Yeah surprise you can build huge stacks of soak and this weapon is going to suck against it, same with anyone using blaster pistols and a soak fiend isnt going to be caring about getting hit by this (plus you really shouldnt use concussive on players too often to begin with imo). Plus as far as I know feral strength + frenzied attack still works on this weapon for those boosts.

b) The weapon is not about doing damage its about preventing damage. A staggered character cannot attack back. You hit someone with his and trigger concussion and that target fundamentally doesn't have relevancy in the encounter for a turn. Brawl users have always been about providing utility to a fight vs melee users, its basically the only real advantage that skill set provides.

Lets think, 4 brawn, 4 int, 3 medicine, standard doctor + marauder combo unarmed master is doing:

8 + 3 medicine + 3 feral = 14 base damage + 4 with destiny point + successes and upgrade the check twice from frenzied attack (3 times if you are bottom of marauder and just dipping doctor)

18 damage with a destiny + successes is pretty solid imo.

If we also got to add brawn to that its 22 with a destiny or flat 18 base damage.

Also this is all applied to strain because of the doctor talents so you cant really parry it if you're going up against a lightsaber wielder and hes likely staggered so no force powers/attacks back. 22 damage + staggered all punching him directly in the strain is pretty nasty. On top of that is a single weapon attack so 3 advantage mean you stagger AND throw another punch on top with whatever other brawl weapon you have (even if thats just a fist). None of this is some niche optimization combo either, its just taking two commonly used complimentary specializations from the core rule book. There is far more terrifying things you can do.

Yeah you can do a bit more with a pure melee build obviously but thats kind of their key asset, the melee skill is all about super damage while their only real utility is getting big fat crit rolls (unless you are willing to sacrifice damage for special effects).

b) The weapon is not about doing damage its about preventing damage. A staggered character cannot attack back. You hit someone with his and trigger concussion and that target fundamentally doesn't have relevancy in the encounter for a turn. Brawl users have always been about providing utility to a fight vs melee users, its basically the only real advantage that skill set provides.

That’s still only one round of Concussion, and you’ve got to wait three rounds before you can use that weapon again.

Meanwhile, my Wookiee with Heroic Fortitude isn’t going to be fazed and is going to be coming after you with his vibro-axe or his Force Pike with Weighted Head, and he can swing that weapon every round. Or, maybe he forgoes the melee weapons and uses paired Blast Knuckles instead. Or maybe he just rips your arms off.

IMO, that isn’t a good weapon to use if you’re up against a heavy-duty brawl/melee fighter. It seems to me to be more of a weapon-of-last-resort, and enough to surprise your opponent and give you a headstart running out the door, but not a whole lot beyond that.

Now, if you were a four-armed Besalisk Marauder who had replaced all of his natural arms with cybernetic ones and had Repulsor Hands in each arm, that might change the story a little.

b) The weapon is not about doing damage its about preventing damage. A staggered character cannot attack back. You hit someone with his and trigger concussion and that target fundamentally doesn't have relevancy in the encounter for a turn. Brawl users have always been about providing utility to a fight vs melee users, its basically the only real advantage that skill set provides.

That’s still only one round of Concussion, and you’ve got to wait three rounds before you can use that weapon again.

Meanwhile, my Wookiee with Heroic Fortitude isn’t going to be fazed and is going to be coming after you with his vibro-axe or his Force Pike with Weighted Head, and he can swing that weapon every round. Or, maybe he forgoes the melee weapons and uses paired Blast Knuckles instead. Or maybe he just rips your arms off.

IMO, that isn’t a good weapon to use if you’re up against a heavy-duty brawl/melee fighter. It seems to me to be more of a weapon-of-last-resort, and enough to surprise your opponent and give you a headstart running out the door, but not a whole lot beyond that.

Now, if you were a four-armed Besalisk Marauder who had replaced all of his natural arms with cybernetic ones and had Repulsor Hands in each arm, that might change the story a little.

Again, this is not how the game works players and their talent list do not equal npcs. Go have a look at the bad guys, they generally have a pretty limited list of talents and abilities and even the big scary nemesis characters are somewhat limited. They dont follow normal character creation rule-s they get give a set of abilities. Maybe they have heroic fortitude, maybe they dont. This is not really about a player vs player set up as nothing in the ffg star wars game is really about that.

And its absolutely about using it right off the bat against the biggest target you can. Hopefully at least one member of the group gets a good initiative slot and the character with the repulser arm pops the biggest baddest guy in their list and he doesnt act in the first round. Having everyone be able to dogpile him and hopefully getting a big set of damage on for zero risk.

Its not about the repulser fist having more damage than the wookie. Its about the repulser fist guy staggering the enemy npc, then the wookie hitting the npc and then immediately next round the wookie gets to hack him up again, all of this occurring before the enemy npc can even react. This gets super valuable when you consider some enemy npcs can have multiple initiative slots in a single round which again, can be skipped.

Yeah you're right there are circumstances where its not going to work or be very effective. Also I could be wrong here but I don't believe a Force Pike can have a weighted head, since both the stunning and the vibro part is at the spear head, not the rest of the weapon so you'r stabbing or slashing with it. I want to say there was a big discussion somewhere about the truncheon and gaffi stick (both needing something to give them a HP first) being the only core rule book weapons that can use it. If you house rule that it there then thats fine but I don't know if i'd let you keep all the qualities of the weapon and get the concussive at the same time but thats just me.

You know, Besalisk with Blast Knuckles (even more powerful with Brawn 5+) sounds like a LOT of fun.

"Oh No!"

"Oh No!"

"Oh NO!"

"OH YEEEEEEAAH!" (Besalisk with quadruple repulsor fists. Probably.)

You know, Besalisk with Blast Knuckles (even more powerful with Brawn 5+) sounds like a LOT of fun.

"Oh No!"

"Oh No!"

"Oh NO!"

"OH YEEEEEEAAH!" (Besalisk with quadruple repulsor fists. Probably.)

All I can think of is

Force Pike with Weighted Head

Not to be "that guy" (though I am that guy ) but a Force Pike isn't a bludgeoning weapon and won't benefit from that attachment. Not to derail the thread but for an example you're using a weapon that doesn't fit with RAW.

It is also something you use with a ranged(heavy) character as a backup weapon. Rifle drawn, he enters a room and a smelly wookiee engages him. Release rifle with repulsor hand as incidental(while still holding it in the other), apply Concussive to hairbeast and spend your maneuver to step back to short range. Wookiee does nothing useful. Next turn, if wookiee followed again spend maneuver to short range, grab rifle with repulsor hand(incidental for minor movement such as shifting position), aim, and melt face.

If nothing else you can adopt the catchphrase, "Talk to the Hand."

If nothing else you can adopt the catchphrase, "Talk to the Hand."

In a WotC RCR campaign I had a character with a cybernetic hand with built in heavy blaster pistol in the palm of the hand iron man style... other players referred to it as the "hand job" but I like "talk to the hand" better

If nothing else you can adopt the catchphrase, "Talk to the Hand."

Let's go classic.

"Gaze into the fist of Dredd!"

Add on question here about the repulsor fist. Since it has a base damage stat and not "+X" does it count as an unarmed attack?

Brawl weapons in general don't count as unarmed.

Thanks. I've read through a few of these and couldn't quite figure it out one way or the other.