My party has a Chiss Gadgeteer who's been salivating over exotic gear lately. That's when I got to thinking, why not give her a taste of home and hook her up with a Chiss Charric?

For those of you unfamiliar with this weapon, according to Legends lore, it's a Chiss weapon available in both pistol and rifle form. It can have a stun setting, and its range tends to be shorter than its blaster cousins. It has some decent Pierce to it. While a charric bolt can be stopped by a lightsaber, it can't be reflected back into the wielder. Stopping the bolts is also draining to the defending Jedi, due to the harsher impact that charric bolts inflict on the lightsaber blade.

Here are my thoughts on what charrics should look like. Please feel free to offer feedback.

Charric (pistol) - based on Heavy Blaster Pistol stats

Ranged (light)

Damage 7

Crit 3

Range Short

Encumbrance 2

HP 1

Price 3,500

Rarity 9

Special (Stun setting available for an additional 1,000 credits, Pierce 3, opponent suffers 1 additional Strain when using Reflect, immune to Improved Reflect)

Charric (rifle) - based on Heavy Blaster Rifle stats

Ranged (heavy)

Damage 10

Crit 3

Range Medium

Encumbrance 6

HP 2

Price 7,500

Rarity 9

Special (Stun setting available for an additional 1,000 credits, Pierce 3, Cumbersome 2, opponent suffers 1 additional Strain when using Reflect, immune to Improved Reflect)

Why is Stun Setting only available as an (expensive) add-on? Do charrics not all come with stun setting?

Pierce is high, but your price and Rarity balance that, i think.

I was mostly relying on Wookiepedia to refresh my memory on them, so my info could be wrong, but it says that charrics CAN come with stun. I might lower the price on that a bit, but I want my Gadgeteer to have to weigh her options between versatility and having more credits available when she sees another shiny piece of gear. I was thinking of the added price as the balance for finding a rarer version of a charric, not the exact cost to for the manufacturers to build in a stun setting. It probably is a more expensive option than it needs to be, though.

This weapon doesn’t seem to be OP to me.

If a player came to me with this idea and could give me a good narrative reason behind it, I’d probably be inclined to allow it — so long as they’ve got the money, etc….

This weapon doesn’t seem to be OP to me.

I disagree. Three pierce on a Damage: 7 pistol means 10 effective damage against anything with 3 soak or higher. That makes it a higher-damage weapon than the Nova Viper (Damage: 7, Pierce: 2), which is considered by some to be the most powerful official Ranged Light weapon in the game. It also has a lower cost and a lower encumbrance. Considering that the Nova Viper's Accurate: 2 (which, admittedly, does make the Nova Viper potentially just as deadly) is more than balanced out by this pistol's anti-Reflect abilities, it is definitely overpowered, at least a little bit.

Also, why not just let it have Stun Setting naturally?

I would go with:

Charric (Pistol)

• Damage: 6
• Crit: 3
• Skill: Ranged (Light)
• Range: Short
• Encumbrance: 3
• Hard Points: 1
• Rarity: 9
• Price 3500cr
• Special: Pierce 2, Stun Setting
• When using Reflect to reduce damage from an attack made by an opponent firing a Charric, character must spend an additional point of strain.
• The Charric fires thermal kinetic beams which are immune to the effects of Improved Reflect.

Here's my reasoning. The immunity to Improved Reflect could potentially be huge and game-changing, especially if you plan to set the characters against lightsaber-wielding foes, so to make it also the most damaging pistol in the game seemed a bit overdone. Reduced the damage by one. Reduced the Pierce rating by one, as well, because there is no official example of an energy weapon with more than Pierce: 2. The reduced range doesn't balance much out, since most lightsaber-wielding opponents will be trying to get into Engaged range anyway. And the cost and rarity don't really matter, since you are providing the weapon for the character.

For the rifle, I'd go with:

Charric (Rifle)

• Damage: 9
• Crit: 3
• Skill: Ranged (Light)
• Range: Medium
• Encumbrance: 6
• Hard Points: 3
• Rarity: 9
• Price 7500cr
• Special: Cumbersome: 3, Pierce 2, Stun Setting
• When using Reflect to reduce damage from an attack made by an opponent firing a Charric, character must spend an additional point of strain.
• The Charric fires thermal kinetic beams which are immune to the effects of Improved Reflect.

Interesting points about the Pierce quality. I didn't realize Pierce didn't reach that level with energy weapons. I mainly got Pierce 3 while thinking of the Model 38 Slugthrower that is my Gadgeteer's default weapon, but I see your point about dialing it back, especially with the pistol version. Cumbersome 3 is definitely a better fit for the rifle. Not sure why I put 2. Probably just a typo.

As far as "providing" it for my Gadgeteer, I definitely didn't mean she wouldn't have to work for it. I plan on having her hear rumors about someone using a strange weapon that she recognizes as a charric, then trying to track down its user, only to be forced to blow him out of the stars. Then she'll hear he offloaded a weapons shipment to a dealer in the lower levels of Nar Shaddaa, but he only sells through a broker who charges an outrageous percentage for his services... Knowing the player, I can probably dangle that carrot in front of her for a while, especially since I know she'll want twin pistols and the rifle. Rest assured, I plan to make the price and rarity major obstacles to her getting charrics in the first place. I just want to make the prize at the end worthwhile (even though she'll want to kill me for reducing the number of hard points).

OK, here's my current thinking on their stats.

Charric (pistol) - based on Heavy Blaster Pistol stats

Ranged (light)

Damage 7

Crit 3

Range Short

Encumbrance 2

HP 1

Price 3,800

Rarity 9

Special (Stun setting, Pierce 1, opponent suffers 1 additional Strain when using Reflect, thermal kinetic beams which are immune to the effects of Improved Reflect)

Charric (rifle) - based on Heavy Blaster Rifle stats

Ranged (heavy)

Damage 10

Crit 3

Range Medium

Encumbrance 6

HP 2

Price 7,800

Rarity 9

Special (Stun setting, Pierce 2, Cumbersome 3, opponent suffers 1 additional Strain when using Reflect, thermal kinetic beams which are immune to the effects of Improved Reflect)

I don't want to lower the base damage on either of those, but I'm considering upping the Crit rating by 1. I'd justify it as saying it's a trade-off. Better armor-piercing in exchange for less effective maiming of meatbags. I'm particularly thinking the rifle here. Would Crit 4 balance it out? Would Crit 4, Pierce 3 be overpowered?

I think Pierce 1 and Pierce 2 are sufficient, and Crit 3 is a good standard for energie bases weapons

with the HP the player still has the option to optimice the weapon, and since your player is a gadeteer, tinkerer will improve one of the values even more.

So go with it!